UTSA 17, Georgia State 14 (OT): How the game was won

Coaches are paid to persevere, to encourage when despair reigns, to keep fighting when defeat is certain, to never, ever give up.

Yet even Larry Coker’s faith wavered after his late fourth-down gamble failed, giving Georgia State possession deep in UTSA territory with a three-point lead to defend and less than four minutes to kill. Another Roadrunners defeat seemed all but certain.

“I thought maybe this thing wasn’t meant to happen,” Coker admitted.

While the Roadrunners weren’t perfect from that point on, they came close enough, stuffing Georgia State without any points, driving downfield for the game-tying field goal with 24 seconds left, stuffing Georgia State again in overtime, then winning 17-14 on Sean Ianno’s third field goal of the game.

So many things went right down the stretch that offensive coordinator Travis Bush referenced fate — just like Coker, but with a different outcome.

“I think it was meant to end that way,” he said. “We found a way to win. We shot ourselves over and over in the first half, but we kept fighting. Just real proud of the guys, with everything we had to overcome, to keep fighting.”

It wasn’t quite the complete, three-facet victory the Roadrunners have been seeking, not with the offense struggling for most of the game. But it was good enough to earn their first victory over an FCS opponent, and snap their three-game losing streak entering yet another open week. (UTSA doesn’t play again until Nov. 12, at McNeese State.)

The details…

* Defense: Big plays were again an issue as the Roadrunners gave up two long touchdowns, including a 24-yard run on which they allowed Donald Russell to reverse field out of a big loss in the backfield.

Those two plays notwithstanding, you can’t lavish enough praise on a unit that, despite the absence of linebacker Steven Kurfehs (knee) and safety Mauricio Sanchez (heel), had its second-stingiest game of the year, limiting Georgia State to 255 yards of offense, including only 81 yards on 34 plays in the second half and overtime.

More important than the numbers were the circumstances. UTSA held firm after the aforementioned failure on fourth down, forcing Georgia State to settle for a long field goal, which the Panthers missed. The Roadrunners, with an assist from the crowd, were even better in overtime, forcing Georgia State to try, and miss, another long field goal.

The aforementioned stand was the biggest of the season, and the latter wasn’t far behind.

“When we had to be good, we were,” defensive coordinator Neal Neathery said. “(The stop after the fourth down) was awesome. The natural human reaction is to go ‘ugh’ and shrug your shoulders. Instead those guys went out there and got excited.”

* Offense: No way to sugar-coat it — the Roadrunners were horrible for most of the game. Bizzaro Eric Soza reappeared after two solid games, dropping several snaps, throwing a goal line interception and otherwise looking entirely frazzled by Georgia State’s swarming, morphing three-man front. His teammates didn’t give him much support with an anemic ground game that got virtually zero push up front.

In short, they were headed for perhaps their worst outing of the season entering the fourth quarter.

And while they didn’t do nearly enough absolve those shortcomings, the Roadrunners did do something they hadn’t done all season: They made plays when it mattered.

Soza capped Chris Johnson’s 9-yard TD run — on which he powered decisively through a large hole off right tackle — with a crisply-executed 2-point conversion pass to Brandon Freeman that made it 14-11. Later, with the game on the line, and not long after he’d misread a route on a previous fourth-down play that could have doomed his team, Soza completed a game-saving 17-yard pass to Freeman on fourth-and-2 during the last-minute drive that yielded Ianno’s game-tying kick.

In overtime, the Roadrunners did something simple, yet far from guaranteed for a first-year team: They didn’t screw up, running up the middle three straight times for 9 yards to give Ianno a short attempt from the middle of the field. Which brings us to perhaps the most important piece of all…

* Special teams: This was the biggest difference between the two teams.

While Ianno converted 3 of 4 field goals, Georgia State’s Christian Benvenuto went 0 for 4, with one of the misses blocked by Erik Brown. UTSA averaged 30 yards on its kickoff returns, while the Panthers only 14.2 on theirs. Georgia State punter Matt Hubbard had a strong game, but Kristian Stern — in replacement of Josh Ward, whom Coker said is out for the year — dropped two kicks inside the Panthers 20.

Just a solid all-around game for UTSA in an area that hasn’t always been dependable this season.

So, as usual, the Roadrunners have plenty of things to work on after struggling with the usual issues, and will for the forseeable future. But after failing to finish off home games against McMurry and especially South Alabama, Coker was thrilled his team was finally able to pull one out.

“Our backs were against the wall,” he said. “To come back and win the way we did, it’s pretty big.”